A Cowboy For Christmas (A Copper Mountain Christmas) (4 page)

CHAPTER THREE

Annie still couldn’t get used to the fact that the ranch was now her home. She had to drive past the Scott Ranch to get to hers and she stopped on the side of the road and looked at the cowhands coming over the ridge. It was lightly snowing and they were riding back toward the ranch house. One of the riders broke away from the pack and came toward her.

She recognized Carson.
She reached up to remove the knit cap she wore to cover her hair, but then regretted it as her ears stung with the cold and she realized her hair was probably flat. She started to put it back on but then decided she was being ridiculous.

“
Hello, neighbor,” she said as he rode closer to her.

“
Hello. What are you doing out here?”

“
I live up the road, remember?”

“
That doesn’t mean you had to stop here.”

“
I was just enjoying the scenery,” she said.

“
Want to go for a ride?” he asked.

She
’d been back in town for almost a week and had seen him in the diner with his brothers, but otherwise she’d avoided him. It had seemed the wisest course of action since she’d been having hot, steamy, disturbing dreams about him and she was still no closer to having figured out who she was.

“
I’d love to but I’m in the middle of a project… actually I might need a favor.”

“
What kind of favor?”

“
Do you have a long-handled paint roller?” she asked. They had one at the Mercantile but it had cost more than she wanted to spend.

“
I might. What do you need it for?” he asked.

She tipped her head to the side.
“Painting my living room. What did you think I’d use it for?”

“
Why are you fixing up your house?”

“
It makes me happy,” she said.

“
That’s a good thing,” he remarked. “I’ll look for the paint roller and brushes and bring them by your place.”

“
You don’t mind?” It was more than she’d hoped for.

“
I wouldn’t have offered if I did.”

“
But why? You said we’re strangers now.”

“
We’re still neighbors,” he said.

And that meant a lot in Montana.
Or really any rural area. “Thank you, Carson. You’ve treated me better than I deserve after the way I left.”

“
You were young. Hell, I was too.”

He turned his horse and cantered away from her.
She watched him go, realizing that being back in Montana had one big plus that she’d never considered—Carson. But she also knew that she couldn’t stay for a man. She’d left for herself, and she really needed to be back for herself as well.

She got back into her car and drove to La Terra De
Reves. She’d gone shopping in town and bought a couple of cans of paint and a wreath for her front door. Her sister Marilyn had yet to return one of Annie’s phone calls but that hadn’t stopped Annie from calling.

Being
back home made her miss her sister and Annie knew it was past time to mend fences. Neither of them had recovered from losing their mom and sister. Last night she’d felt so mired in the past, but today she focused on the future.

She was still a little scared and very unsure of what,
exactly, she was going to do next. She’d had a sense of purpose that had been eroded by time and the years she’d spent away from this quiet valley. Looking at the weathered cedar post and rail fencing that lined the gravel drive leading up to the wooden ranch house didn’t inspire her, but the thought of seeing Carson again did.

La Terre De
Reves, the optimistic name her father had given the ranch.
The land of dreams
, so named because her mother was an immigrant from France. Annie remembered her early childhood and the happy memories she had. But everything changed when she’d turned thirteen and it was impossible, standing here twenty years later, to forget the intervening years and the experiences she’d had.

A cold nose nudged the middle of her hand and she looked down at Rumple her English bulldog.
He was sprawled out next to her, his stubby legs flat so that he could rest his belly on the leather seat. His coat was short and wiry, a brindle mixture of white and red. His face had the normal bulldog folds and he looked up at her with big, wide-set eyes. Running errands in town had worn him out. She scratched behind his ears. He responded with a sloppy kiss on her hand.

“
This is it, baby,” she said. “We’re back home”

Marietta, Montana was a far cry from her apartment on the Upper East Side in Manhattan but the FBI had taken everything that she
’d had there. She was literally holding everything she owned. This old rust-bucket of a car, Rumple, and a small duffel bag they’d provided for her to gather clothing and makeup in before the rest of it was seized to be sold. Sold to repay the people her ex-husband had bilked out of their savings.

She groaned and put her head on the steering wheel.
She wished she felt like Fantine in
Les Miserables
, but instead she was pissed off that she’d put her faith and her fortune in a man like Davis and now she was back where she started. Older, but she sure wasn’t wiser.

She and Davis had been married for ten years, childless by choice, and she
’d sort of been his arm candy – and as it turned out, his distraction for potential investors. Davis had been a con man and a fraud... everything her father had warned her about as she’d left the ranch behind.

She put her car in gear and drove up the snow-covered winding road to the main house, which was now hers, thanks to Davis buying her sister out after their father died.
She owned a hundred acres of land and this ramshackle single-story ranch house. There was a bunkhouse behind it that looked as rundown as the house, and the pastures had grown over.

The front yard was full of brown batches of dead grass, mounds of
unmelted snow, and some ice. The old barn looked as if it had seen better days and needed to be re-stained. One of the doors hung off its hinges.

Looking at the house gave her a sort of tingling in the bottom of her stomach.
Not excitement, but just a project that needed her. La Terre De Reves was in worse shape than she was and she wanted to fix the old homestead. She also knew that with enough time, which to be honest she had plenty of now, she could make it a home.

She got out of the car and watched Rumple climb down and head to the weed-ridden flowerbed to relieve himself as she grabbed her large leather Coach bag, which she
’d had the good sense to leave with a friend when she went to collect the rest of her belongings.

When her husband had been arrested and indicted for fraud eighteen months earlier, she
’d lost everything. She’d divorced Davis and done her best to survive. But there was nothing left for her in Manhattan as even her so-called friends had cut ties to avoid being tainted by the scandal.

It was so quiet here in the valley, no honking horns or rumbling subways.
Instead just the quiet of the valley and the magic of the distant snow-capped Copper Mountain. She remembered how this valley had nurtured her as a child and realized that was why she’d come back. She needed to find her center again and hoped that this place could work its magic once again.

As she walked up the stone path, she remembered watching her father
lay the river stones. She unlocked the door to the house, and Rumple ambled up beside her and flopped down at her feet as if he’d exerted all his energy just to make it to the door.

“
I’m feeling ya, buddy,” she said, as she stepped over the threshold and held the door open until the dog followed her inside. A waft of stale air and the oddly sweet smell of her father’s cigars surrounded her. She reached into the bag and got out the apple cinnamon plug-ins she’d purchased in town, popping one into the outlet near the front door.

Already it was starting to smell
more homey. She went back out to the car and slowly brought in all her purchases. She hung the wreath on the front door and then decided to call her sister again. The call went to voicemail.

“
It’s just Annie again. Please call me back. I’d love to get together and catch up. I’m sorry I let so much time go by.”

She hung up and looked around the house.
She had big plans to start redoing it but now it seemed overwhelming. She piled all her supplies, the two cans of paint, and some drop cloths in the dining room. She remembered there were paint brushes and rollers in the garage and went out to find them.

Rumple wandered off and she glanced around the house with its worn furnishings and layer of dust.
She wished now that she’d let Davis buy new furniture for the place, but her intent in buying it from her sisters was to get them to stop bugging her to come home.

The sound of her boots on the tile floor echoed as she walked through the house to the garage.
It was dark and cold and she fumbled for the light switch, knocking over a box in the process.

The light came on and she glanced at the floor where the box she
’d knocked off had fallen on its side. She bent to pick it all up and froze as she noticed what was there. Christmas past stared her in the face. An ornament she had made at Brownies. A family portrait stuck in the middle of a green and red bread-dough wreath.

She held it loosely as her heart caught in her throat.
She traced the wreath, feeling the rough texture of the dough where she hadn’t kneaded it enough to get it smooth. They had been such a happy family back then. Her dad wore his Sunday shirt and “good” Stetson, her mom smiling over at him and her sisters all healthy and whole. She wanted that again.

But all she had was this empty house.
She pushed the other items into the box and closed the lid, setting it aside. She shoved the ornament into the pocket of her jacket and went to gather paint supplies. Back in the house, Rumple was waiting for her.

She scratched him behind the ears, found an old bowl in the kitchen, and filled it with water for him.
Placing the ornament on the counter where she could see it, she got to work fixing up the house.

For the first time she wished she had someone to lean on.
Someone she could talk to, not so they could solve her problems or fix her, but just so she didn’t have to carry this all inside. She’d screwed up and she was back at the one place she never wanted to return to.

She
’d had just enough time to make a plan. She hadn’t been able to keep her leather-bound planner, but the FBI had let her take all of her notes out of it and she’d used binder clips to keep it together. She sat at the kitchen table and made a list of everything she’d need to make the house livable. It was habitable. A roof over her head and she knew she should be grateful to have it.

CHAPTER FOUR

La Terre De
Reves was looking a little sad, and as he drove up to the front of the house he noticed signs that Annie was living there now. The wreath on the front door, the cobwebs cleaned from the windows, and a box marked Christmas on the porch.

He knocked on the door and heard a loud bark, and then the sound of dog
’s nails on the hardwood floor.

“
Good boy, Rumple,” he heard Annie say a second before the door opened. “You’re the best guard dog in the world.”

The English
Bulldog stopped and barked one last time as he looked up at Carson. He’d always loved dogs and bent over to pet him. The ‘guard dog’ licked his hand. “Nice to meet you.”

Rumple gave him one last lick and then turned around to waddle back down the hall.
Carson stood up slowly and noticed that Annie had been staring at his butt. He arched one eyebrow at her and she shrugged.

“
You’ve got a great ass. It’d be a sin not to stare.”

He laughed.
He figured it was pretty run-of-the-mill but he was glad she liked it. “I had an extra-long paint roller and two free hours if you want some help.”

“
I’d love your help,” she said. “The house is pretty run-down.”

“
Years of neglect will do that to a place.”

“
To a person too,” she added.

“
Have you been neglected?” he asked. “You never did tell me what happened to your marriage.”

“
That’s old news and not very interesting,” she said. “I’d rather live in the now.”

He didn
’t like that she kept deflecting any topic that got too close to the real woman. And even though he was attracted to her, he wasn’t interested in being just another diversion in the Annie show.

“
Forget it,” he said. “You can keep the roller – we’ve got a bunch back at the ranch.”

He turned on his heel to walk back to his big Chevy F150, wishing this felt more like a narrow escape than genuine disappointment.
Considering he’d spent the last two nights lying his bed and wondering if he might have a shot at the one woman he’d never been able to forget—he knew that was a lie.

“
Carson.”

He stopped and glanced over his shoulder at her.
He wore a cowboy hat, his thick shearling jacket and heavy boots, and he knew that when she looked at him she saw an image. It was the image that had initially drawn Rainey to him.

He saw a woman in a flannel shirt and a pair of skintight leggings.
In his mind she looked like home but he knew that was an illusion. For a woman to be home she’d have to want to stay some place and not always be moving on. Annie wasn’t home.

“
I’m… I don’t want to talk about New York or my marriage. It’s embarrassing and painful,” she said. “But I really don’t want you to go either.”

“
I’m not asking you strip your soul naked. I just need to know that you’re not toying with me.”

“
Why would I be?”

“
Because you’re a leaver, Annie.” He wanted to know if that had changed. He wasn’t about to risk falling for her again if it was just an odd breeze that blew her back into his life.

She wrapped one arm around her waist, her gray eyes frosty as the snow covered ground, but lonely too.
“I guess I am. What would it take for you to stay?”

Honestly if she asked him he
’d stay. And that made him feel sad because he had hoped after all the years he’d be stronger where she was concerned. He was still sort of mad at her and a part of him wished—really wished—he could use her, make her feel something for him and walk away. Because then maybe she’d know what she’d done to him.

But there was a better chance of it reaching eighty degrees on Christmas day than that ever happening.
Because he couldn’t be around her and not fall a little under her spell.

“
Ask me,” he said at last.

“
Please stay.”

He nodded, turned around, and walked back into her house, picking up the paint roller he
’d left by the door on his way. He was damned glad his brothers weren’t here to witness this because they’d call him a stupid fool.

Her house smelled like Christmas and he attributed it to the pine garland she had draped over the table in the hallway and on her mantel in the living room.
But he knew it was more than that.

It was December and he was dreaming like he always did of a holiday miracle.
The kind that his mom used to read to them about when they were little. She’d covered the furniture with drop cloths.

“
Looks like you’ve been busy.”

“
I needed it,” she said. “I’ve had too much on my mind.”

“
Like?” he asked, inviting her to be real with him but assuming she wouldn’t be.

“
You. This place,” she said. “I don’t get why I can’t ever manage to be happy.”

He leaned the paint roller against the wall and took off his hat and jacket, placing them over the back of the
arm chair in the middle of the room. Her dog lay on a big blanket next to the empty fireplace.

“
Only you can answer that,” he said. “But I’ll tell you what I learned when Rainey died. You can’t keep looking back and wishing for things to change.”

She nodded.
“I guess that was hard for you.”

“
You have no idea,” he said. He knew she figured he was talking about losing his wife and that had been hard. But lately he’d been wondering what might-have-been if he’d been willing to leave with Annie.

And that had bad idea written all over it.
“I’ll get this room done if you want to work on something else.”

“
Need me out of your hair?” she asked.

“
Something like that,” he said, knowing he didn’t need the distraction of Annie and the dreams she made him think might come true.

She had that wild out-of-control feeling that she got just before she did something stupid and she couldn
’t help herself. But she walked over to Carson and leaned up to kiss him. He was a good guy. He always had been and she’d always felt just a little bit broken.

He sighed opening his mouth and she wrapped her arms around him and hugged him close.
She stood there as the warmth of the embrace engulfed her. He pulled his head from hers and cursed under his breath before bringing his mouth back down on hers. The embrace wasn’t gentle. His anger was palpable and so was his desire. He put his hands on her hips, drawing her closer.

She opened her eyes and looked up at him.
Her heart beat faster and deep inside where she’d been cold for so long, a spark was ignited as she saw the flush on his face and his half-closed eyes.

With Carson there were no games and she knew if she wanted a chance at kissing him again she had to be honest.
But her old instincts were kicking into gear. She started to moan because Davis had liked it when she made noise when they kissed and almost as soon as she did it, she knew she’d screwed up.

He pulled back and looked down at her.

“What the hell was that?”

“
I was…I’m sorry.”

“
You can’t even be honest when you kiss me?” he asked. “What are you hiding?”

She shrugged and pulled back.
“I just didn’t want to disappoint you.”

“
You can’t as long as you’re yourself. I don’t want you to try to be what you think I want. We’ll both lose if you do that.”

“
I don’t—

She stopped herself before she could say what she knew was the truth, but she suspected he
’d already figured it out for himself. She didn’t know who she was.

“
Tell me.”

She shook her head.
When she looked at Carson she saw so much of what she wanted to have for herself. His confidence in his place in the world, his family and those ties to Marietta and the Paradise Valley. But more than, she saw a man she wanted to be able to claim as her own. But she couldn’t.

She couldn
’t because she wasn’t really sure what she wanted.

“
I don’t know who I am.”

He nodded.
“That’s the first honest thing you’ve said to me since you’ve been back.”

“
I’m scared,” she admitted

“
Of what?” he asked, pushing a strand of hair behind her ear.

For the first time he made her
realize that she wasn’t alone.

“
Marilyn won’t talk to me,” she said. “I… I didn’t come back for dad’s funeral because my life was falling apart but I didn’t want to admit it and now she thinks I’m just a super-bitch.”

He hugged her close.
And then pulled back. “One step at a time. She’s coming to the tree farm on Saturday to collect her tree. Why don’t you show up early and wait for her?”

That frightened her too but she was done laying her soul bare for this afternoon.
“Thanks for the suggestion. I will.”

“
Good. Now about this painting…”

They worked together in the living room with Carson painting the walls and Annie doing the trim.
She felt the first tingle of something that she wasn’t sure she could define as they worked together, but she liked it. She learned that he loved being a dad and that scared her because Annie and kids didn’t mix. But then she reminded herself of Carson’s advice…one step at a time. That was all she had to do. Slowly work through the holidays and into her new life.

“
Looks good,” she said, when he was finished. “Thank you for your help. I don’t think I could have hired a better painter in Manhattan.”

“
Did you do that a lot?” he asked.

“
Yes. When I first got married I completely gutted our apartment and re-did the entire thing. It took me eighteen months to get it finished.”

“
Why did you leave it behind?” he asked. “Why not stay there? I’m guessing it was your divorce that drove you back here.”

She shook her head and took a deep breath.
“It was and it wasn’t. My ex-husband was indicted for fraud and I lost everything.”

“
What kind of fraud?” Carson asked.

“
A Ponzi scheme that involved a lot of really nice senior citizens. Everything was sold to reimburse them and Davis is in jail now.”

“
How did that affect you?”

She didn
’t really want to tell him how stupid she’d felt when she realized what Davis had been doing. She’d trusted him and defended him and the entire time he’d been lying and using her to help further his schemes.

“
I lost everything too. Everything except this,” she said gesturing at the living room. “And I must thank you again for your help. Now the living room looks cheery.”

He seemed like he might want to ask her more questions but she was raw and didn
’t want to expose anything else right now. “I hate to rush you along but I’m working the dinner shift tonight and I was planning to stop at the bank and cash my paycheck. I should have done it earlier.”

But she hadn
’t wanted to risk having too much cash in her purse when she went to the Mercantile. Everyone had their weaknesses when it came to spending and hers was home decoration. She knew she’d have bought all kinds of picture frames and ornaments to decorate the house and she had budgeted to buy gifts for her sister and her family.

“
I’ll get out of your hair then,” he said, picking up his jacket and his Stetson and walking to the door after giving Rumple a rub behind the ears. “See you Saturday?”